Learning to Love
by aBeautifulLiar
Summary: After everything that had happened in Rosewood with the Dollhouse and Charlotte, Hanna thought she deserved happiness. She had no idea that happiness would only last less than three years. Her son was born into a world she hated, with no idea that the very reason he was born was the same reason she wanted to die. [Prequel to 'Shattered Pieces']
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is a prequel to my story Shattered Pieces – it'll be in around five parts, depending on what people think! For those who haven't read that story and feel no need to, all you need to know is that Hanna was raped and never told Caleb what really happened. He discovered a pregnancy test, and accused her of cheating on him which she never denied, thus he left for Europe and Hanna stayed behind in New York. This story is going to follow Henry and Hanna throughout their lives together pre-Rosewood, so please, please let me know what you think!**

" _In the tunnel where I was raped, a tunnel that was once an underground entry to an amphitheatre, a place where actors burst forth from underneath the seats of a crowd, a girl had been murdered and dismembered. I was told this story by the police. In comparison, they said, I was lucky..." - Alice Sebold_

With Caleb gone, Hanna found herself spending much of her time curled up in bed with an arm wrapped around her stomach, tears running down her face. Her eyes were sore and red, her throat raw and every part of her body ached with this dull pain she couldn't shift. As though something just had to remind her that she was still there, even when she didn't want to be. With Caleb gone, she didn't have to pretend as though everything was fine anymore because there was nobody around she had to pretend to. Luckily, it was the summer break before another year at college, and she knew she could survive off her Europe savings for at least long enough for her to pull herself from the deep depression she had found herself in.

Finally, she moved to lay on her back and rested a hand on her stomach – she was pregnant. She was going to have a baby and the father was not the person she had longed for it to be. If Caleb had been the dad, she could imagine how her life would have been; her head turned and she gave a small, sad smile as she looked at where he used to lay. His hand would be on her stomach, a silly smile on his face as he spoke about what they were going to do when their baby came, what they would name him or her, if he would prefer a girl or a boy first, about all the other children they were going to have. He would have been stressing about upping his hours at work so they could save for a bigger, a better apartment and he would be asking for a raise so they could raise a baby whilst she was still a college student.

They could have been happy, smiles on both of their faces as they just imagined what the mini them would be like. They had discussed names once and Caleb had said he liked the name Evelyn for their future daughter which meant they had Evie Rose and Amelia Grace Rivers for the two daughters they planned on having, and then Henry Thomas Rivers for their son. She wondered how angry he would be if she named her child either Evie or Henry, if he would hate the idea of her using the names they had decided on together. Her eyes closed tightly and she held back a sob before she moved back onto her side and wrapped her arms around the pillow Caleb once rested his head upon. She could still smell him, she could practically see him laying there, shirtless and smirking. She missed him, she missed everything about him and yet, she would never get him back because he was gone. And she was left to raise the child of a rapist on her own.

It took two weeks until she managed to crawl out of bed for the first time for something other than the odd glass of water or some sort of food to keep her going before she crawled back into her bed and again, mourned everything she had lost. It was the first time she had let the fresh air hit her face, her hand wrapped around the warm cup of coffee she held as she just walked through the streets of New York. Her breathing got heavy when she passed a dark corner, of an alley that could potentially be the one she had been dragged into, or worse, it could happen again. She didn't leave the apartment again for three weeks after that, and instead she would sit near the window and stare out at the streets she was missing out on, wondering if she could ever be normal again. Her hand kept falling onto her growing bump and she felt nothing but a mixture of sorrow and complete loss – she wondered if she was, at this point, completely lost. She had been forced down a path she had never wanted to take and she didn't know how she could turn back and get to where she needed and wanted to be.

Despite fact she was twenty-four weeks pregnant, Hanna had yet to see her baby on the screen she had heard so many mothers rambling on and on about. She had heard stories about how they had seen their babies for the first time and how elated they had been, how amazing it had been to see that life growing inside of them. Hanna had just avoided it; she had gone back to college, focused on classes whilst she avoided people and forced a smile when they congratulated her. She didn't see what she had to be congratulated on, but she was good at playing pretend, she could pretend to be the doting, good mother that the world thought she was meant to be. She didn't mention that Caleb was gone, she didn't mention that her life was over.

Somehow, she managed to find herself in the doctors office though, enduring lectures about how she should have come sooner but she only shrugged it off as she stared down at her huge bump. It just seemed to grow every single day, as though it was taunting her. The love of her life couldn't get her pregnant but one night with the man who haunted her nightmares? Well, that seemed to do it. She was being laughed at, taunted in every single way possible and she had no idea how much hate she could possibly have for the life growing inside of her. Whatever it was or however it looked, could she really bring it up right?

Tears fell down her face only twenty minutes later when she stared at the screen and was told she was expecting a baby boy. Maybe she could have learned to love it if it turned out to be a girl – maybe she could have learned how to bring her up, how to separate it from the man she hated so much. But she was having a boy – would he grow up to be like his father? Would he look like him? Would it be ingrained within him? Would she ever be able to look at him, or hold him without seeing what had happened?

That scan was the first and only time she saw that little boy on the screen, the first time she watched the way he moved, the way his tiny body turned in her stomach and how he seemed to be waving at her as though he really, really wanted her to love him. She didn't think it was possible to ever love something that came from him. She would see it in his eyes, she would see it in how he was when he got older. Maybe adoption was still an option but for some reason, that thought terrified her, that she would bump into him one day or she would see his face on the news as a wanted criminal when he was in his twenties and she would just know it was him. Or maybe he would go looking for her and she would have to tell him why she gave him up, and he would pretend to understand but he would hate her. If she went at the rate she was going, even if she did bring him up, he would hate her anyway. That thought didn't hit her with the overwhelming loss she had felt when she realised Caleb hated her, but she wished it would.

Once she had gotten home, she brought a pillow to her face and screamed into it, wishing she could rip him right out of her and forget the entire thing ever happened. Why didn't she have an abortion whilst she could? Why didn't she take the morning after pill? Why did it ever happen at all? There were so many things she could have changed, so many things she should have done that would have prevented her from being in the situation she was in right then but then she reminded herself – she hadn't taken the morning after pill because she had been so in shock, she could barely move, she had struggled to get herself out of bed the next morning before she spent an hour sobbing in the shower. She hadn't had an abortion because she couldn't bring herself to do it, she had even tried, she had booked an appointment but she hadn't been able to leave the apartment and she wasn't able to convince herself in time that she wanted to kill the baby that was growing inside of her. She let out another scream at the thought and sobbed as hard as she could, until she cried herself to sleep.

She wished she could have said that she was shocked when she went into labour seven weeks earlier than planned. She hadn't been looking after herself or the baby inside of her – she barely ate enough to feed one, let alone two and she found it difficult to move out of bed most of the time. She managed to get through college, although she had no idea why or how because energy seemed like a thing of the distant past. She had to turn up to the hospital, on her own, after sending her mother and nobody else a text stating she had gone into labour but she would be fine, the baby would be fine. And if he wasn't, would she care? Not that she would ever be able to say those words out loud, she wasn't done pretending to the world that she was fine because as far as they were concerned, she was nothing more than the person who had cheated on her boyfriend and had ended up pregnant with another man's baby. She had kept that lie going, told people who asked that that man had turned out to want nothing to do with her or the baby. She could lie as much as she needed to in order to keep the people in the dark about what had really happened.

Hanna would be lying if she said the thought hadn't crossed her mind more than once – the thought that involved her walking out of there and leaving her son behind in the Intensive Care Unit. When he was born, he had been so tiny, so helpless, so vulnerable and she wondered if he would be better off without her. As she sat next to the incubator that housed her tiny baby, she averted her eyes to the other families in the room – she watched the hopeful looks on their faces, she had seen parents crying and then she had seen them sobbing when they were told that any hope they did have, was gone. It made her feel sick when she watched them because she envied them in a way that she never should have done; she had a precious baby boy and maybe she should have been proud and happy but instead, she was willing for him to join those other babies who could have been loved and happy because she couldn't give him the life he would have needed.

She didn't shed a tear, the nurses and doctors tried to convince her that it was just the shock of the situation but she knew it went deeper than that. She was just staring at this tiny baby and it felt as though she was looking at a stranger, a complete and utter stranger because there was nothing there. She didn't love him, and she wasn't sure she even wanted to love him. She watched as other mothers so desperately sought to wrap their arms around their babies, so happy when they finally got to hold them and instead, the first time he was placed in her arms, she just looked down at him wondering what the hell she had done. His hair was blonde, his eyes were blue, her mother said he looked like she did the more he grew but all she could see was the person who had held her against the wall that night and shoved her into the depths of hell. Now that he was born and she was meant to love him, she felt the darkness wrapping around her, enveloping her completely until she had no idea who she was anymore. She was meant to be a mother but she felt the furthest thing from it when she looked down at that baby and thought of all the ways she could have stopped this from happening.

People came to visit her and the little boy who got stronger and stronger with each passing day – the doctors called him a miracle, stating that he was going beyond anything they could have expected from a baby so premature. He was breathing on his own after two weeks, he could take his own food just a week after that, his jaundice was near gone, and he was starting to regulate his own body temperature. He was exceeding expectations and all she felt was pure jealousy when she watched someone else walk away and go back to their own lives. Her mother came and went, coming back to New York every so often to make sure that Hanna was doing okay, and then all of her friends visited before they had to leave to go back to their perfect lives. She was jealous, beyond jealous, she was completely envious that they were happy and she was stuck. Stuck in that hospital as she waited for someone to tell her that the son she never wanted was well enough to leave.

It was only the times that she was completely alone that she allowed herself to cry and mourn everything she had lost. Her arms wrapped around herself and her head hidden in her knees as she thought about the life she could have had. After everything A or Charlotte had done to them, they deserved to be happy and she should have had that, she should have had that for longer than three years. In those darker moments, she even considered how she would have preferred to be locked in the dollhouse – nothing like that would have happened to her there, she would have been deeply traumatised but at least her best friends, her mother and the person she loved wouldn't think she was a cheat and she wouldn't be forced to bring up a child she hated.

They made her hold him, told her how she needed to hold his head, how she should try breastfeeding again because breast was best. They would try and make her feel guilty but it was as though her body completely shut down, her body had already betrayed her once and now it was just continuing with it. Although it wasn't much of a betrayal, she didn't want that close to him anyway. The best thing about the hospital had been the fact that the nurses or the doctors seemed to do most of the work, they would feed him when she couldn't, they would change him, they would check on him, they would do everything that she would struggle to do. But then, the best thing about being home was that there was no one to watch and judge her on how she was around her son. She didn't have to hold him if she didn't want to, she could feed him formula milk if she chose to, she could throw a pillow over her head when he cried at night and ignore him.

Even after a week of being home, it seemed as though he knew he was unloved. He settled into his own routine, one that didn't include crying at night; most people moaned about how their babies took so long before they slept through the night but instead, Henry seemed to pick up on the mood straight away. Mommy wasn't going to get him and hug him when he cried and so, she managed to sleep through the night, only awoken by the nightmares that haunted her every night. And then she would wake up and move to his crib, staring down at his sleeping figure with a pillow in her hand. Her heart would thump against her chest and she would grip onto the fabric, just staring at his sleeping form before she would take a step back and move towards her bed, moving the pillow over her own face as she wished she could suffocate herself.

The only time she would hold him was when someone else was around, and it felt uncomfortable and he knew something was wrong. He'd cry, even when she held him, only to stop when he was wrapped in the arms of someone else; anyone else. He loved her mother, he'd snuggle into Ashley's chest and his fingers would curl around her hair and he would fall asleep quickly and easily. Both of them had a mutual agreement that they would be together because they had to (well, she supposed, as much of a mutual agreement as a six week old could have), and not because they wanted to. Every single time that Hanna thought about it, she knew she should have done the right thing and she should have just let him go to a family who could have given him all the love he deserved. They wouldn't have to know about who his father was or how he had been conceived, they would love him for who he was and not who she thought he was going to be, or the person she related him to.

There was one night, she found herself on her laptop, typing in 'how to love my rapists baby' as though it was a perfectly normal thing to find. But she had spent hours going through the articles she had found there of the many, many women who had made the decision to keep their baby after they had been raped, but most of them told the stories of the joy they had felt when they held their child for the first time. There were women who fought for their babies no matter what had happened or how they had come into the world – they thought their children were perfect, they would describe the love and maternal affection that had come over them and she turned her head to look at the sleeping boy in his crib, wondering where those feelings were. She could list how she felt about him and none of them were the things she was seeing in front of her – she hated him because of who his father was, she was scared of him because of what he could become, she wished he would disappear more than once a day because her life would have been so much easier without him in it and most of all, she felt jealous because he had no clue how he came into the world, and he was blissfully unaware that the reason he was born was the reason she wanted to die.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Apologies for the wait, but here is chapter two! Trigger applies as always – mentions of rape, suicide/murder. Please, please leave a review to let me know what you think!**

" _What's the point of obsessing over cholesterol or bike helmets or even cigarettes when the biggest threats to our children are being released back into society every day? Yes, maybe 'some' of them have reformed, but what about the ones who haven't? Doesn't anyone realise that one 'touch', one 'time' will destroy a child's life ten times faster than a pack-a-day habit?" - Laura Wiess_

Ashley Marin sat next to her daughter, as she held the baby boy in her arms and smiled down at him. These were not the circumstances in which she thought she would have a grandchild, but he was perfect. The moment she had seen him, she had fallen in love and begged Hanna to return to Rosewood where she could help her with everything but the blonde had point blank refused. She had muttered something about college and when Ashley attempted to point out that she could just take a break until Henry was a little older, Hanna had just shrugged her off and said she would think about it, although Ashley was sure the younger woman never would.

She was so young, too young to be a single mother and the red head had always hoped for something more, something better. She was supposed to be done with college when she got pregnant for the first time, she was meant to be married to Caleb which was what she had been preparing herself for next. She was meant to be happy, loved, in love and secure but the woman she saw next to her right then was everything other than those four things. Something had changed when she had gotten pregnant, something Ashley wasn't sure she really wanted to know, not deep down. She could sense the darkness, but she tried to push it down and tell herself it was the fact that Hanna had made the biggest mistake of her life and had lost the person she loved so much because of it. She could see the guilt in her eyes, and the pain was indescribable.

The woman just wanted to take her in her arms and make her tell her everything but the more she tried to push Hanna into telling her, the more the blonde pulled back and shut down. She could see it happening and there was nothing she could do but hold her grandson in her arms and wish him all the luck and love in the world. Whenever she visited, which was few and far between because it was difficult with work and the amount of travel it required, she would find herself double checking everything. Hanna was clearly overwhelmed, and sometimes, she could see the way she looked at Henry as though he wasn't really there. Or as though she didn't want him to be there but then she would catch herself, force a smile and say something she thought was meant to be said, although the words sounded fake.

The grandmother would find herself checking the weight of the little boy in her arms, she would ask Hanna what she was feeding him, how much she was feeding him, how he was taking his food but he looked healthy. His clothes were always clean, his diaper always changed, but he didn't seem to have many clothes which was the first sign that something was wrong. Her daughter never needed an excuse to go shopping, she had half-expected Henry to have a wide range of outfits to choose from but most of the stuff he wore were things she recognised as things that had been bought for him by herself and others. Her daughter barely seemed to leave the confides of her apartment. He was clean, and whilst he seemed healthy and content, there was something about the entire thing that never sat right with her.

Her eyes glanced around the apartment for the hundredth time since she had gotten there that day, and she still found herself looking for the sign that a child lived there. He had a moses basket that she knew Spencer had bought at the baby shower she had forced Hanna to partake in even though the blonde had told her she didn't want to celebrate anything, he had a play mat that Emily had bought for him that laid on the floor, a rattle from Aria, and a few cuddly toys here and there but nothing that would amuse a growing boy as he became increasingly aware with the world around him. She bit it back though, not wanting to cause an argument during her short time there and instead, she kept focused on the little boy on her lap. He was just three months old, he had no idea what was going on around him but one day, he would be old enough to realise and that was the thought that broke her heart.

By the time she had to leave, it broke her heart to kiss Henry on the forehead and whisper a soft 'I love you' to him before she did the same to her daughter. She had no idea what the feeling was every single time she walked away from that apartment and the two people inside of it, but it was enough to make tears fall down her face and an ever growing sense of loss to consume her. She had no idea what it was, and she was barely sure she wanted to know.

By the time Henry was six months old, Hanna was entirely certain it could only end one way. She was going to kill herself, that had been decided way before that moment. The only decision she needed to make was whether she was going to take Henry with her or leave him behind. It wasn't the first time she had found herself on the roof of her apartment building, Henry snuggled warm in his push chair behind her as she stood on the edge of the tall building and stared down. Her heart thumped against her chest and she looked behind her and wondered what it would be like to just fall right then – would someone find him before he froze to death? Or would it be less cruel to wrap him in her arms and let him fall with her?

Hanna didn't know what would be easier for the little boy, would he grow up knowing he was the son of a rapist and a woman who committed suicide because she couldn't stand to be around him? Because life was getting on top of her and she wasn't sure she could live with it any longer? Or would it just be easier for him to be taken out of this world six months in and never grow up to know the horrors of his conception, never feel guilty for being the person that reminded his depressed, suicidal mother of everything she been through? Would it be nicer, easier, better?

It was that moment that she stepped down from the edge and she had made up her mind and a weight lifted from her shoulders. She would write letters to those she needed to say goodbye to and then she would take Henry to the roof that night, when no one would be able to stop her and they would say goodbye to the world together. She would take him from the world that could destroy him in just a second,she would steal him from the cruelty of the place she loathed so much and it was just, it was right. For the first time, she managed to convince herself that she was being a good mother and doing what was in the best interest of her child.

As always, the world had other plans for her.

Her hand trembled when she finished the final letter, addressed to Caleb, her lips gently pressing against the paper as she whispered a silent goodbye and an apology to him. Maybe he would understand everything once he had read the words, maybe he would be able to forgive her or maybe he would continue to hate her for the rest of his life, however long or short that may be. She had gone through her usual routine – put Henry down for his nap, fed him, dressed him, stared at him for a moment and wondered what kind of person he would have grown up to be – and for the first time, she tried to imagine him to be good, to be happy, to love and to be loved. Before, she had managed to convince herself she was looking into the eyes of the man who had raped her and she would be bringing up another man who would do the same to an unwitting person. She convinced herself that it was genetics, that was the only way he was going to go – he came from bad, so he would only ever be bad. It had been decided that she would be the person to take that bad from the world and whilst she was sorry, she would have been more sorry to let him grow up into a world that could damage him more than he already was.

Darkness would soon fall, and she took the last hour to be the good mother the world thought she was. She sat him in his high chair, forced a smile as she fed him before she got up and let him feed himself whilst she got everything ready. She may have already accepted death as the inevitable end to their story but it didn't stop her heart from dropping when she heard a choking sound behind her. Death may have been accepted in her mind, but on her own terms and as she watched the face of her little boy turning red, then purple as his lips turned blue, she realised she had no idea what she was meant to do to change this turn of events.

For the first time in the six months since he had been born, she felt something growing inside of her, something that lurched her forwards and took him from his high chair into her arms as she smacked on his back and let out a broken sob. He couldn't breathe, she couldn't do anything to take his pain away and suddenly, she could see herself in him. She could feel hands around her neck, she could hear herself struggling to breathe to no avail, Henry was her son and she had been the only one to destroy any good that was in him.

Her hand shook as she grabbed her phone from her pocket and dialled the number she should have dialled that night, sobbing as she dropped to the ground and laid the tiny baby on the floor of her apartment. "M-my baby, he's choking, he's choking... what do I do? Please help me..." She ran her fingers through his blonde hair and shook her head as she listened to the person talking on the other end of the phone. She let out a rushed response of her address and quickly moved Henry onto her lap before she turned him onto his stomach and did as she was told, letting the phone drop once she had put it on speaker phone. She allowed the tone in the woman's voice on the other end of the phone to comfort her in some way as she felt her son's body going limp in her arms before eventually, the large grape she must have given him fell onto the carpet, half digested but still big enough to have done the damage.

Quickly, she turned him back onto his back and stared at him, rubbing his chest as she begged for him to let out a breath. His eyes were closed, his lips were blue, there was no sign that there was still any life inside of him and for just a brief second, she considered making a run for the roof and jumping off it right there and then. This wasn't part of the plan but she could have made it so. The sirens were the only thing that stopped her and she found herself stumbling towards the door, the tears had stopped and she felt numb to everything around her once she had watched the paramedics rushing in to tend to the baby boy she was entirely certain she had murdered.

His biological father had been cruel, but at least he had let her live, even if sometimes she believed that was worse than what she was beginning to feel was the sweet release of death. Now, she felt worse than him. She should have known better, she should have paid more attention, she should have been a better mother so in his six months, he would known something other than the basic needs she had met for him. She wished more than anything that she had told him that she loved him because in his six months, he had never heard those words from her. She wished she had held him more, felt his heart thumping against her hand more, heard his breathing more and she wished more than anything, she could have given him a better life.

The journey from her apartment to the hospital was short, one she barely remembered and everything that followed was a blur. There was a mess of nurses, doctors and social services but it all blurred into one. Every face looked the same, everything that people spoke to her hurt just as much as she last, the way they looked at her never changed. She had done something awful, she had taken her eye off the ball, with one event she was in the spotlight now and she knew it wouldn't be easy to get off the conveyor belt she had just put herself on. In the mess of it all, she had forgotten to put a jacket on, leaving her scarred and cut arms exposed to the rest of the world, and most importantly, to the eyes of the woman who had come from social services to see what a terrible mother she had been. When she finally admitted to someone that she was struggling, her plans for that night had been forgotten and she looked into the eyes of the kind woman who looked as though she had seen this kind of thing too many times.

It wasn't until Hanna found herself standing outside the room her little boy was staying in that she turned to the woman who had introduced herself as Miss Walker, and she told her how she really felt, "I wasn't sure if I loved him until he couldn't breathe. I-I'm a good mother, but I've been a terrible person. I thought I hated him..." She had trailed off and her hand had pressed against the door, almost too scared to go in and face what she had done, "If you're going to take him away, can I say goodbye to him?" She had whispered, almost too scared of the answer before the other woman had just pressed a hand to her arm and looked into the room herself. Maybe there was enough for her to take the little boy right there and then, but one look at him and the woman, she knew it wasn't the right thing to do. Not yet. Not until Hanna told her she wanted her to take him or she had any belief that the little boy would be best away from his mother.

At the shake of the head, and the assurance that, whilst they would be keeping an eye on her and her son, they would not be taking him away from her just then until she gave her reason to do otherwise, Hanna slowly pushed open the door and stepped inside.

Somehow, it was as though she was seeing her son for the first time, she was experiencing what it was like to be a mother for the first time since he had been born and she was almost drawn to the large bed that he was placed in the middle of as he smiled and giggled at the nurse next to him. The wires were gone, and except for a rather raw throat, he was otherwise fine. He would be there overnight for observations, and to make sure the lack of oxygen hadn't caused any further damage to his tiny, still growing brain. "Can I hold him?" She found herself asking, the fear in her voice and her eyes evident as the nurse gave her a look and then nodded her head, the social worker behind her giving the other woman a comfort that even if Hanna was unstable, someone was there to protect the little boy if need be.

Slowly, Hanna took the little boy in her arms, and it hurt when, for a second, she could see the confusion in his eyes and a look of unfamiliarity cross his features. "I'm so sorry," She whispered to him, when the tears started to fall once again. She rested him in his arms and held him close to her chest, her fingers running over his head before she pressed her lips to his forehead. It was as though she was seeing him, really, truly seeing him for the first time and an overwhelming feeling surged through her. "I'm going to be a better mommy from now on, I promise, I'm going to give you everything you deserve." She had told the other woman in the room everything, leaving out the plans that were originally set out for that night. But, for the first time, she had admitted to a stranger that she was raped, that Henry was a product of that night, that she was finding it hard to deal with everything especially because she was alone and no one knew. Saying those words out loud had felt good and she wasn't being judged for them either, struggling was natural, she had been told. Social services could offer her the kind of help she needed if she let them, if she didn't fight them and most of all, if she allowed herself to trust them.

She knew she would be seeing Miss Walker and perhaps some of her colleagues a lot more than she would have liked. That there would be visits, expected and unexpected, there would be paperwork to fill out, things she would have to do to prove she was a good mother, or at least, that she was trying to be a good mother. Holding her son in his arms right then, she made him so many promises she intended to keep and one of those started with getting rid of the letters she had written that day. It was just the beginning, but it was their beginning as mother and son. "I love you," She whispered, for the first time as tears fell down her cheeks onto his outstretched hand as his big, blue eyes stared up at her. He had her eyes. She could finally see the baby that laid in her arms and he had her eyes. Not his.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: I really wanted to give the readers of Shattered Pieces a view of Hanna's life before her and Henry started to bond and have a relationship like they do in the story, so I have very much enjoyed writing this so far, so thank you very much to all the readers and the reviewers, I have appreciated and loved every single one of them.**

 **So, this is the final chapter of this short story and I would love to know what you think, so please don't forget to read and review!**

" _For anyone who wonders what it's like to have a tragedy shatter your existence, this is what I would tell them: it's like going through the motions of everyday life in a zombified state. It's having outbursts of anger for what seems like no apparent reason, for even the smallest of offences. It's forgetting how to be your once cheerful, perky self,and having to relearn basic social skills when mingling with new people (especially if those people are ignorant, or just plain terrible at showing sympathy). It takes a while to re-learn all those basic skills. Maybe... it's possible. Maybe you have to want your life back first, before it can start repairing itself but then you also have to accept that the mending process may take the rest of your life. I don't think there's a set time limit for it." - Sarahbeth Caplin_

It was a cliché – coming so close to losing someone she never knew she wanted, before deciding she did want him after all. But that was the most normal thing to happen to her since she had been raped, and so, Hanna clung to that feeling. All she knew was that when she had once looked at her son and felt hatred for him and for his father, confusion as to why it had to happen to her and as to why she felt nothing for him and she had also felt longing to look the way other mothers did. Now, she would find herself glancing over at him and wondering how she had gone six months hating him.

She was learning things about him she never knew before, things she should have known as his mother – she noticed that he would scrunch up his toes when he was tired, that he thought someone poking their tongue out was hilarious, he really loved to grab people's hair, and when he was hungry he would put his whole hand in his mouth. Before, she was just coasting along; they had a routine, she would feed him at certain times, change him as and when needed, bathe him once every few days and other than that, she would ignore him. They co-existed and she wondered what kind of life her son would have had if they had carried on that way. What kind of person he would have grown up to be if his early memories were him knowing he wasn't wanted or loved.

When she thought about it, an overwhelming sense of guilt would consume her and she'd have to remind herself that even though it had taken far too long, she would do everything she could to make sure he would never remember those first few months. There was so much bonding to do, so much time to make up for. Once he was released from the hospital, she was reminded further by her assigned social worker that she would be visiting her soon. And those visits would be frequent, and furthermore, those visits would come with conditions. One of which meant she had to take mandated therapy to try and work through everything she had been through.

The blonde moved over to the little boy, taking him in her arms as she smiled, before she turned back to the social worker who treated her with kindness but still, remained otherwise neutral in her words and the way she was around the young family. "He's doing really well," Hanna finally spoke, pressing her lips to his head, "I know it shouldn't have taken him almost dying for me to realise that I love him but I'm glad I realised now before it was too late." Perhaps the other woman would take that as Hanna knowing she couldn't have let Henry grow up in such a toxic environment but Hanna knew the true meaning behind it. If it had never happened, she and Henry would probably be lying in a morgue right then, local newspapers would write articles about the awful mother who had stolen such a young child from the world. Somehow, they would get hold of one of the letters she had written, and know the truth behind his parentage and publicise it for others to read. For the rapist to know that really, he had turned into a double murderer in the end.

She shook those thoughts off and moved to sit down across from the woman, resting Henry on her lap before he tilted his head back to look up at his mother. Hanna had started to notice how much he had changed as well, how much happier he seemed to be – his eyes would sparkle, he would actually smile when she walked into the room and he was starting to reach out for her. Slowly, he was starting to become accustomed to Hanna actually picking him up when he cried and he sought out her comfort. The things she had done, how she must have made him feel, only made the guilt increase with each passing day but she knew she could make it up to him, if she just let herself have the chance. But still, somehow, it was strange to think that she wouldn't have had such a chance had fate not intervened.

Hanna bent her own head down to nudge their noses together, a huge grin on her face, "I never thought he could make me happy, you know? Maybe I should have put him up for adoption when he was first born, maybe that would have been better for him but something stopped me, and I guess this was the reason why." She wrapped her arms around him and just took a moment to inhale everything that was Henry. She loved him, of that she was certain, but whether she could be a great mother, that was the uncertain part.

The woman – Emily Walker, as she had introduced herself properly once Hanna was calm enough at the hospital – just looked at the two, making a few notes here and there before she took a deep breath. "And have you still been self-harming?" She asked, her eyes gazing towards Hanna's covered arms, and the blonde, for a moment, thought about being honest but somehow, she knew it would do her no favours. "No.. before it was just because I hated myself for not being what he needed but now I know I can be that person, I've not really felt the need." She shrugged her shoulders, even going so far as to roll up her sleeves to display that no fresh, new cuts had appeared since they last spoke.

She decided not to mention that she had found a new spot on her body, one that could be covered up a lot easier. Instead, she forced a smile she knew the woman wanted to see and then returned to focusing on her son. Henry let out a squeal and grabbed his mother's fingers with his tiny hands before he looked at the woman across from him.

When she finally left, Hanna once again found herself alone with the little boy and their eyes met for just a second, before Hanna moved over to him and sat down next to him. She took one of his hands in hers and then moved her other hand through his blonde hair as she just stared at him, "I'm going to read you a letter I wrote to the man I so wanted to be your father, I know you don't really understand but I'll talk to you about this when you're older and you will, but I kinda need to get these words out. You won't understand that either," She let out a laugh, despite the tears that were about to fall down her face, "But maybe you'll understand one day that sometimes, you need to say something to someone, even if they can't hear you. Even if they don't really know that the hell you are talking about. Sometimes, you just have to get it all out and I'd much rather it be you than that awful therapist they have me seeing."

With a small sigh, she removed the crumbled up piece of paper from her pocket and held it out in front of her with a small frown, "Dear Caleb, if you're reading this then I've finally done it and you're probably wondering why. You probably have a lot of questions that I have never answered, questions that I perhaps should have answered before you walked out that door. But first, I need to tell you that Henry should have been yours, he should have been ours. And I wish that he was our child, that he would have you as his father... but most of all, more than anything, I wish that I would have let you have the chance. Contrary to what most people believe, I'm not that stupid or naïve and I know you wouldn't have left me if you had known what really happened that night. I let you think what I needed you to think because it was just easier than accepting what happened. Even now, a year after you've gone, I should be able to send you a message on Facebook, or find out your new number from one of our friends and tell you the truth but I can't. Because I know you Caleb, and I know you'll come right back here." She took a deep breath and moved to place Henry on her lap so he could look at the words she was reading, the tear stained ink slowly dripping down the pages as she bit down on her lip.

"That is just the kind of man you are, and more than anything, I wish I was able to give Henry the chance to grow up to half the person you are. Strong, loving, caring, brave... all the things I wish I was. The truth is, I can't give him the life he needs, or the attention or the love he so obviously craves and growing up with me as a mother isn't going to make him into the kind of person I want him to be. I'm selfish for taking him with me, I know that, but what chance would he have if I hadn't? I do know though, that you would have loved him as though he was your own, that it's my fault that you never got that chance and most of all, it's my fault that he never got that chance. He deserved to have a parent like you, someone who would love him and see him for the perfect, little boy he is rather than the way I see him. Anyway, here it is, the truth as you should have heard it when it first happened – I never cheated on you, not consensually anyway. I love you, Caleb and I always have, always will if I gave myself the chance. Touching, looking or even flirting with another man seemed impossible, because all I wanted was you. But when you just jumped to that conclusion that night, I made a choice and maybe it was the wrong one – no, I know it was the wrong one – but I made a choice I can't take back."

Henry wiggled in her lap but otherwise, seemed quiet, as attentive as a child who knew nothing of the world around him, could possibly be and Hanna just held him loosely as she sniffed, "I was coming home to you when it happened, I was so happy because I was going to surprise you. I was going to start putting you first like you deserved to be but I guess the world had other plans for me. I was never supposed to be happy, was I? At least, that was how it felt. My life has been filled with these awful moments, with little bits of true happiness and love. Those are the moments that were mostly filled with you. I said no, I promise, and I fought as much as I could with a knife pressed against my throat. Sometimes, I wonder if it would have been better to let him stab me because then, if I had survived, it would have been easier to tell you what happened. I never could find the words, as much as I longed to – but here they go. For the first time and the last time, the words I should have blurted out to you when it first happened, or even when you were about to talk out the door. I was raped, Caleb. That sentence is strange to write, it feels... unreal, almost. It feels as though it happened to someone else, or I'm talking about something bad that had happened to some other person in another lifetime. Those three words seem too mechanical to actually make anyone understand how it made me feel. How do you say it out loud?"

The blonde mumbled an apology against her sons head as she closed her eyes, the tears falling down her face, "I can try and describe how it made me feel – dirty, used, disgusted, ashamed, guilty as though I had done something wrong, hatred for myself and for the little person growing inside me when I learned of him. I would spend hours in the bathroom after it happened, scrubbing at my skin until it was raw and bleeding. I would stare in the mirror and tell myself it was all my fault, my outfit was too short, I wasn't aware of my surroundings enough, I must have encouraged it in some way. And the more I thought about it, everything just spiralled out of control. I didn't even know I was pregnant at first because the morning sickness that should have been there was overridden by me kneeling over the toilet with my fingers down my throat like I did when I was fifteen, I should have known better but I never do. Any emotion I don't want to feel and I go straight back to that person, no matter what happened or how I feel. I guess what I'm trying to say in this, my last letter to you, is that it wasn't your fault. I should have said something to you, I should have phoned you from the hospital when it happened, I should have told you before you walked out, I should have let you hold me, I should have let you be there for me because I know you would have. I know what an amazing father you would have been to him, how he could have grown up never knowing the truth about how he was brought into this world but I couldn't do it, Caleb. Being on my own with him gave me a chance to not pretend that everything was okay, it stopped me from healing when I knew I could have had a chance with you."

Hanna could barely see through her tears, until Henry's hand on hers brought her back and she smiled, despite the raw emotion she felt right then. "There is nothing you could have done to prevent this. You need to know that, you need to understand that no matter what, I was the only one who could have changed the way this ended up. I could have and should have told you and maybe we would have broken up in the end but at least you would have had all the information you deserved. Henry would have gotten the chance to live in a world of love and happiness. He deserves the world, and I can't give it to him and if he were to be given the chance to grow up after I do this, then what kind of life would that be? The son of a rapist and a depressed mother who committed suicide in the end. I needed to end this, I needed to stop this. I'm so sorry but remember that I love you, and Henry would have loved you."

When she read the letter for the first time since she had written it, she took a deep breath and moved to stand up with a sad smile on her face, "He never needs to know... I have no idea what is going on with him right now but I'm sure he's happy and now, we have the chance to be happy too." She moved to the small balcony she had, that overlooked the streets of New York, the little boy still in her arms before she took a lighter from her pocket and smiled a little, "Say bye-bye." She whispered, lighting the corner of the paper before she threw it in the waste bin she had brought out beforehand. She moved Henry's hand to wave at the burning paper as she bit down on her bottom lip, trying to say goodbye to all those suicidal thoughts, burning away the version of herself who thought death was the only way to rid herself of the way she felt.

She let it burn until she was sure any trace of those words were gone, before she took a bottle of water from the side and poured it over the small fire she had started, closing her eyes as she said a silent goodbye to the man she loved. It was just a few moments later when she found herself standing inside her apartment, placing her son back down on the floor he had been happily playing on before, that she sat back down in front of him and shot him a smile, "I think we need a fresh start." She whispered, lifting him back to rest against her chest, "Hi, Henry, it's really nice to meet you, I'm your mommy." He let out a squeal and grabbed her hair before his chubby arms wrapped around his neck and his face buried into her neck. "And you're my perfect baby boy... I love you very, very much."


End file.
